We are proud to present the Loving Touch EP from Fracture, possibly his best yet and upping the ante from the much hyped - for all the right reasons - Get Busy The EP centres around 'Loving Touch', officially using Ralphi Rosario and Xavier Gold's early Chicago classic 'You Used To Hold Me'. Ralphi loves the track and you will too. It updates the production taking the track to 160bpm, adding some footwork hats and bass but not forgetting Fracture's roots and forsaking the breaks. This drops! Loving Touch has already had loads of club play and since Rockwell sneaked it on to his BBC Radio One show we have been inundated with requests for it. The rest of the EP is by no means filler and sees Fracture at his creative best, blurring lines between 2014 rave music. Werk It was rhythmically conceived in a dream and realised with simplicity the next morning. A favourite of Machinedrum it's bubbles along with a stripped back carnival vibe, vocal instructions to "go down! / come up!" and clattering soca percussion. One for Notting Hill. Grippin' Grain is a collaboration with Sam Binga and was written at his studio in Bristol with a steaming hangover. Somehow they pulled it together and delivered a minimal 808 laden piece that never seems to let the tension drop from the first beat to the last. Slammed through an analogue desk adds enough grit and distortion to perhaps reflect the effects of the previous night? Fracture rounds off the EP with Overload and concludes a theme of breakbeats and bass stabs across the project. With block pary Hip Hop human beatbox and UK sound system samples, we find ourselves plunged thousands of feet under the atlantic ocean in a frantic international soundclash.


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Astrophonica welcomes Austin, TX-based finger-drumming beatmaker Flobama to the label for the first time with Orion Sound—a raw, undiluted, and psychedelic take on Jungle, infused with shades of classic Hip-Hop, Jungle, and that indefinable celestial fusion underpinning Astrophonica.

With a background in instrumental Hip-Hop, Flobama has performed live alongside Blue Lab Beats, Shigeto, and The Alkaholiks using a Roland SP-404 sampling workstation. He has also built a dedicated online community on Patreon and Instagram, creating official live video content for Red Bull Music Academy and Roland.

Orion Sound takes this U.S. instrumental Hip-Hop foundation and blends it with modern UK Jungle through a cosmic lo-fi lens. The entire EP was crafted using PotenzaDSP’s recently developed Amigo Sampler, which emulates the signature gritty sound of the 1980s Commodore Amiga—the machine that helped define early UK Hardcore and Jungle music.

Despite Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry being part of the world premiere of the Amiga 500 in 1985, the affordable home computer never penetrated the studios of underground producers in the U.S. as it did in the UK. While the U.S. is known for lo-fi beat machines like Akai’s MPC range and the E-Mu SP1200—pushed to the limits by greats like Dilla, Pete Rock, and Madlib—the original Amiga alumni were dominated by a crew of UK junglists such as Bizzy B, Equinox, Urban Shakedown, Dlux, TDK, Zinc, and Paradox. It’s suggested that megastars like Aphex Twin, Calvin Harris, Mike Oldfield, and Kanye West have used Amigas running various pieces of tracker software, but that distinctive sound will forever be linked with raw, DIY bedroom Jungle.

Orion Sound takes all of this and mixes it into a well-seasoned sauce that is as tear-out as it is cook-out—combining the laid-back, loud-pack sunshine of Texas with the wall-slapping intensity of an East London rewind. Low-riding at higher tempos, it’s not Footwork Jungle, but it occupies a similar furtive U.S./UK mash-up space once held by Machinedrum, Om Unit, Rashad, and DJ Spinn.

To celebrate the EP’s crunchy, cosmic origins, Fracture and Flobama have collaborated on the Orion Sound Sample Pack, created with the Amigo Sampler and available separately from the EP on the Astrophonica page. The pack features 255 scratch-built, handcrafted sounds using hardware such as Korg SV2 keys, a Mackie 1604 desk, and more—all sampled and processed in Amigo. It includes breaks, pads, and bass samples drenched in glorious 8-bit, low-sample-rate sonics—go wild.

Orion Sound is available as a four-track 12” vinyl and digital release, featuring a collaboration with label boss Fracture and artwork by Utile Creative.

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Fracture & Neptune reissue two classics from the Astrophonica catalog on a new 12”. Clissold and The Limit shine a spotlight on the early days of their musical journey in the mid 2000s.

While there are other tracks that could and may get reissued, the pivotal nature of these two and the ongoing demand for represses made them the perfect place to start. Reissuing them not only honours their impact on our careers and Astrophonica's evolution but provides the opportunity to have them remastered on vinyl by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven and on digital by Bob Macciochi at Subvert Central Mastering for a modern take in 2024.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
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Damian’s Ghost returns to Astrophonica and picks up from where he left off - humbly rolling out the most exquisite Atmospheric Jungle tracks you’ll hear this decade. After Life is four blissed out emotional journeys full of classy pads, hazy breaks and ghost-like traces of a cultural past. The origins of this music developed at such a fast pace that some eras and styles were oftenshort lived leaving us questioning what may have become. Damian’s Ghost exists in that great unknown and continues the lineage gracefully towards sonic excellence.

“In this era of rampant clout chasing via social media and a ‘who can shout the loudest competition’ it’s incredibly calming and grounding to have an artist like Damian’s Ghost. His music has everything I look for - it’s unique and has an immediate and strong identity. I can tell a Damian’s track from the first couple of bars” - Fracture

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Atlanta resident Nikki Nair invites you to join his new 4 track EP on Astrophonica - ‘Renormalization Support Group’. It’s a place where we can share our experiences via the help of Nikki’s special ‘not quite sure what you call it’ bass lead Electro Breakbeat programme.

Track one is ‘Plug’ - An uptempo low slung booty shaker which will have sound engineers scrambling at cables and faders trying to work out wtf is going on. We’ve all been there so let’s talk about it.

Track two is ‘Where Are U’ and encourages us to ask ourselves that question through the exploration of full speed Breakbeat Electro. If we know where we are, we can begin to look into where we are going. Probably the dance floor.

Track three is ‘it's NP-Complicated’ which sets out an uncomplicated blend of bubbling bass and simple sympathetic drums, providing us with a network to feel more empowered and to build a sense of community.

Track four is ‘Donut Time’ - Well done for finishing the course! You can congratulate yourself with a donut full of squelchy acid jam, glazed with frosted pads and hi hat sprinkles.

“Together we can help ourselves be alone together.” - Nikki Nair

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: gpsr@wordandsound.netMore